SUPREME COURT Widow Awarded £5659 Against College

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31071, 28 May 1966, Page 23

SUPREME COURT Widow Awarded £5659 Against College

For injury suffered when her right arm was caught and burnt in a mechanical iron, Betty Crowe, a widow, was awarded £5659 13s damages last evening in her Supreme Court suit against Lincoln College, where the accident occurred while she was working in the laundry.

The sum comprised £5OOO general damages—out of £6500 claimed—and £659 13s special damages agreed on, the college having admitted liability. Mr Justice Wilson entered judgment. Mrs Crowe’s case, which took two days in hearing, was conducted by Mr J. G. Leggat. Lincoln College was represented by Mr R. P. Thompson.

The jury was an hour and a half in reaching its verdict. Medical Evidence

i More medical evidence for the defence was given yesterday by William Allen Liddell and Stuart Maxwell Cameron, orthopaedic surgeons, who rejected the contention that Mrs Crowe’s pain from the injured arm was attributable to causalgia (discomfort from damage to the nerve system of the arm). “That just doesn’t enter the picture here,” said Mr Liddell. Both described Mrs Crowe’s pain as neurasthenic (real to the patient, but without apparent physical cause). Cross-examined by Mr Leggat, Mr Liddell said he was competent enough to say that the opinions of other doctors, who had advised Mrs Crowe to give up her work at Lincoln College, were wrong. He thought her pain was exaggerated, and that she should have stayed at her work. When it was put to him that Mrs Crowe had gone back as "a trier” for six months, the

witness said: “The fact that she did it for that long shows she could have just carried on.” He conceded that he had seen Mrs Crowe only once, at an examination two days ago. Plaintiff's Case

The plaintiff’s case was completed by evidence from her daughter, Catherine Mary Crowe, a nursing sister, who said her mother was in genuine pain in doing household tasks, and from Shirley Abbley, a married woman, and a former member of the Lincoln College laundry staff. Mrs Crowe, Mrs Abbley said, had tried her hardest when she came back to work, and did well, but was very tired by the work, which was an effort.

Mr Leggat: Did you see any signs of pain? The witness: Oh, yes. Quite apart from her complaints of pain?—Yes. Defence Address

Mr Thompson, addressing the jury, described the plaintiff’s claim as extremely large, and said that although liability was admitted, the jury must see justice was done, and not make free with someone else’s money.

The defence conceded that Mrs Crowe’s pain and suffering from the accident had been considerable, and that her present pain was genuine —“but there is no physical explanation of it,” said Mr Thompson. “It is mainly neurasthenic, our doctors say, and should disappear after two years or so.” Before assessing damages, the jury should heed carefully the evidence of the doctors called by the defence, who had said there was no reason for Mrs Crowe’s pain, other than in her own mind.

Of the plaintiff’s doctors, Messrs Milliken and Amos and Dr. Mayell, Mr Thompson said that doctors were only human. It did not impugn their capacity or veracity to say they could easily become too close, and too sympathetic, to the patient, and less analytic and scientific, so that their judgment became affected. The doctors for the defence, on the other hand, could not be said to have been other than cool and detached. Mr Leggat’s Address

The case, said Mr Leggat, had engendered considerable medical controversy, with doctors called from hither and yon, but doctors did not assess damages. “It is for you, the jury, to bring to this case that bump of common sense and wisdom which is expected from you as reasonable members of the community,” Mr Leggat said. “I say this, and I stand pat on it: these were grievous injuries,” said Mr Leggat. “This was a frightening and horrible accident. My learned friend and his doctors can talk until they are black in the face about third-degree burns, but I say it was a horrible and shocking—and shock-produc-ing—injury, as well as being disfiguring.” Of the medical evidence, Mr Leggat said that the plaintiff’s doctors were the ones who had treated Mrs Crowe as a piece of flesh and blood—Mr Milliken had actually operated on her arm. Might not the jury prefer their evidence to the defence doctors’, to whose surgeries Mrs Crowe had

merely been sent for an hour, so that they could make a report to a legal adviser for Lincoln College? In criticising the doctors for the defence—“and you can take it I will,” said Mr Leggat —he conceded they were men of integrity who had come to the court to give an impartial judgment. “But I don’t, with respect, rate their judgment highly—and I invite you to take the same view,” Mr Leggat said. Of Mrs Crowe’s financial loss, Mr Leggat said it was so real and serious, and so likely to go on for a long time—a position in which she was put by her employer’s negligence —that the jury should not drop far short of the amount claimed.